Linda Bradford

LHS '64

Posted on Facebook by Zac Head on November 29, 2023

My Mawmaw, Linda Bradford, has transitioned from what we know to the mystery and promise of unfathomable peace, wholeness, and unity with the Divine.

Mawmaw went through seasons of life when others gave her reason to feel small, but she chose to live her life in ways that lifted others up through service. Her love for her family, her friends, and her animals was on full display; even literally in her apartment which was covered with pictures of us all. I will remember Mawmaw as being funny, sassy, and eager to give and receive hugs and kisses with her grandkids and great-grandkids. My very favorite memories with Mawmaw are times when it was evident that she felt comfortable enough to let all of her guards down, be herself, and have fun with her family and friends. 

She was very supportive of my ministry. She even bought me my first “preaching suit” to wear when I received my first pastoral appointment. For the last several years she has been very involved with her church family (Satellite Beach Church of Christ), loving the congregation as well as those folks in the surrounding community who their ministries assist (especially their food pantry). I am so very thankful for this special group of folks who have loved and been loved by Mawmaw so well. 

Even in our grief, we cannot help but find ourselves smiling, even laughing, as we remember our time together with Mawmaw. We are so blessed to have her as our Mawmaw.

Thank you to everyone who has loved her over the years. Even in my last real conversation with her she was asking about many of you from the Tuscaloosa area who have meant so much to her.

HUNTSVILLE

Before The Journal There Was "The Rocket City"

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

Taken from "A Million Tomorrows...Memories of the Class of '64"

(Editor's Note: Amazon came up with a program to help authors turn their printed books into audiobooks and I was given a chance to be a beta-tester of the software. As I was looking at the opportunities I once again found myself re-reading the words I wrote back in 1991 when I first published the book on Amazon. I realize many of you have previously purchased the book, but I thought you might also enjoy revisiting some of the contents, so here is an extract from the prologue of the book. I hope you enjoy it.)

Huntsville, Alabama was not what you would call a normal deep South town in 1963.  It may have been 100 years before, but it wasn't anymore.  Huntsville had rocketed into the modern world, propelled by the Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal and its race for space.  This event was aided by the addition of Werner von Braun and the other German rocket scientists of his staff who were brought to this small country town at the end of World War II.  With them and the other scientists, Huntsville put aside its claim as "Watercress Capital of the World," adopted "Rocket City" for a new nickname, and looked to the future.

The city grew from 16,000 residents at the end of the war to approximately 75,000 by the time I entered high school in 1961, to a little over 125,000 by my senior year in 1964.  The arsenal brought thousands of federal jobs and with them came modern technology.  With the jobs also came an invasion from the North that rivaled Sherman's Army's march to Atlanta.  The Southerners woke up one morning to find themselves working side by side with two of their former enemies, the Yankees and the Germans.  I think they liked the Germans better.

With the new industry, Huntsville cast aside its ole' South attitude and looked at itself as the doorway to the future.  One thing that quickly went was the old courthouse in the traditional center of the city.  Most Southern county seats had similar courthouses.  Huntsville's had the massive white granite columns, the sleepy little walkways wandering around the building, the tall oak trees full of squirrels, and the traditional statue of the Confederate Soldier, erected in the honor of all the brave men that died in the defense of the Southern ideals.  The city fathers decided that all those things were old-fashioned and did not reflect the new South.

The courthouse was torn down, the trees cut and the square transformed with the construction of a shiny new glass building that epitomized modern America.  The chrome and glass stuck out like a sore thumb in the center of the town.  

For years before, the courthouse had been the center of activity of the city.  On Saturdays, men took their guitars or Bibles there and sat on the benches and steps and sang or preached, depending on their mood.  Others took their pocket knives and pieces of cedar and sat and whittled and spit while they listened and passed the time of day.  When Huntsville had its sesquicentennial, they had a kangaroo court there every Saturday and did nasty things to men who had not grown beards as they had been ordered.  There were dunking tubs and fake jails.  The whole town turned out to enjoy the festivities and celebrate our heritage.

When the courthouse went, so did the old area around the square where cotton used to be sold, crumbling to the wrecking balls of change.  Cotton Row and its wooden storefronts were torn down and replaced with a view that overlooked Big Spring, the water supply that was responsible for Huntsville's being a city instead of a cotton field. The spring was the source of many local folk tales.  As a kid, I was told stories of how Frank James broke his leg jumping into the spring after robbing the First National Bank located on the square.  Another tale centered on a cave behind the rocks in the spring that supposedly connected with another opening on the top of the mountain.  If you found the right cave, you could go in it at the spring and come out on top of Monte Sano Mountain.  At least twice during my childhood fences were put up and taken down along the waters of the spring.  The spring was filled with big gold fish and green vegetation.  It was fascinating to walk along the edge of the stream and look down into the clear, cold water.

Other links with Huntsville's history also had to go.  Even the street on which I lived, originally East Clinton Street was changed.  Its name was switched from East Clinton Street to Clinton Avenue East as part of the modernization program.  In the change, they must have found five lost houses between my house and town, because in one day the house number changed from 505 to 510.  The house in which we once lived, because it was the only one we could afford, became a protected building in the "new" Old Twickenham District, and with its increased social status, we could no longer afford to live there.

It was a neat old house.  We lived on one side of the large duplex and another family lived in the other half.  Our side had two bedrooms and a bath upstairs, and two bedrooms, a bath, a living room, and a kitchen downstairs.  The inside baths were not original equipment and it was easy to see where they had been added to the side of the house.  It also had a large screened-in back porch with a small utility room on it.  I was seven when we moved into it in 1953.  It had twelve-foot high ceilings with transoms above the doors.  In the summer months, we tried to keep it cool with strategically placed window fans.  Usually, we just stayed hot.  Air conditioning was not an option.  In the winter, the whole house was heated by coal-burning fireplaces.  We had a coal shed from which we hauled coal for the fires.  On cold mornings we got up early and lit the fireplace to get the house warm enough to get dressed.  Most of the dressing was done sitting right in front of the fire.  I used to brag about that later in life, something like the old folks bragging about walking five miles to school in the snow and ice.

Finally, one day the landlord sent some workmen and had gas fireplaces installed.  I thought they were the greatest inventions I had ever seen.  I was amazed that you could light the fire with just one match and get instant heat.  There was no more need to haul coal into the house or to carry the ashes outside.  

About the same time, "Ma Bell" also modernized the telephone system.  They replaced the old, plain-front black telephone sitting by the front door with a modern dial phone.  The female voice on the other end which had always asked "Number please" ceased to talk to me when I picked up the receiver.  It was replaced by a silver dial and dial tone with magical abilities to connect to other people's phones at my command.  To accommodate these changes, the telephone numbers went from five to seven digits.  Huntsville and 505 East Clinton Street had moved into the modern world. 

TO BE CONTINUED!  

The Wayback Machine

"Moments to Remember" is a 1955 popular song about nostalgia recorded by Canadian quartet The Four Lads.  It eventually reached number 2 on Billboard magazine's Top 100 hit list (an early version of the Hot 100), sold 4 million copies and became the group's first gold record.

I hope you will get a chance to listen to this song and relate to the words. They are very nostalgic.

I have hear from a few of you that you failed to receive last week's issue so here is the link to go back and see it. Point your mouse at the link below and click on it.

https://sites.google.com/view/lees-traveller-2/240219-february-19-2024

Remember you can get to all the old issues by clicking on the links on the left of this page.

I plan to include some extracts from my book in the next few issues and hope that you will enjoy looking back at those times as much as I did.

Oh, and an odd thing happened to me this week. I was invited to audition for the lead role in a movie they plan to film in Memphis in April. I know I did not pass the audition and will not get the part, but it was an honor to at least get to audition. I hope there are some bit parts available when they start filming.

Last Week's Questions, Answers, 

And Comments

Mike Acree, LHS ‘64, "Apropos of books published by our classmates, I just remembered that, in the days before e-mail (if anybody still remembers those), Mike Jett's mother used to compose round-robin letters to send to a dozen relatives, and Mike compiled those into a book, privately printed for his mother's 75th (or 80th?) birthday.  As you might expect from knowing Mike, it was a remarkably entertaining read.  I recall a family trip back from Japan in very rough seas, where their dinner utensils kept sliding around the table so dizzyingly that you never knew whose plate you were eating from.  And Mike had a great-aunt whose husband complained that she once cooked a duck that was so tough they couldn't eat the gravy."